Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
The Kirkland & Ellis Texas team did not need long to make its case this week with a Texas Triangle deal blitz stretching from Canada to West Texas. In less than 24 hours, the firm’s public relations team, almost as busy as its deal team, rolled out a rapid-fire run of transactions involving its Austin, Dallas and Houston dealmakers.
Dallas-based Safe Harbor Marinas said on Aug. 10 that it has acquired MarineMax for $53 a share, or about $1.5 billion, in cash. MarineMax, based in Oldsmar, Florida, is a boat and yacht retailer that also provides superyacht services. Sidley Austin provided outside legal counsel to MarineMax, while Simpson Thacher advised Safe Harbor.
The week that was saw 13 deals valued at $11 billion. They included a $5.5 billion natural gas deal, a major fuel distribution acquisition, a landfill deal involving corporate cousins and a truly major fund raise for an Austin distributor of home battery installations. And, of course, there was SpaceX news.
Texas private equity firm EnCap Flatrock Midstream has sold Momentum Midstream to Oklahoma energy infrastructure company Williams for $3.5 billion in cash and debt and roughly $2 billion of Williams equity. Willkie and Kirkland advised on the deal.
As usual, a $14 billion data center deal in El Paso leads the pack alongside an abundance of M&A transactions with potential data center spin. But there were a few deals outside the large load computational orbit worthy of attention.
BlackRock and Meta announced on Tuesday a deal to build a 1 gigawatt data center in El Paso. Latham & Watkins advised Meta on the transaction, and BlackRock used Kirkland & Ellis as outside legal counsel.
Spring-based Expand Energy has acquired Houston wholesale energy marketing company Twin Eagle Holdings for $1.25 billion from private equity firm Five Point Infrastructure.
As in most weeks of late, the deals reflect the ongoing data center scramble for power at every level, from upstream to downstream generation to renewables and storage and to the mining of metals that move or store it all.
That and more in this edition of CDT Roundup.
Dallas-based Matador Resources said Thursday that it has acquired Paloma Permian from Houston private equity firm EnCap Investments for $1.275 billion in cash. Baker Botts and Vinson & Elkins advised on the deal.
Kirkland & Ellis and Troutman Pepper Locke advised the parties in an all-stock transaction, adding 1.25 million net acres in South Texas for Houston-based Magnolia Oil & Gas.
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